


Still Alive

by nerdgirlwalking



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Finch shade, Portal/Portal 2 Spoilers, Rootato, Shootweek18, Thecakeisalieandshawispissed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 22:16:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14757297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdgirlwalking/pseuds/nerdgirlwalking
Summary: All Sameen Shaw wanted to do was repay a favor. She should have known better than to return to Decima Laboratories. The last time Shaw had run the testing floor Root, The Annoyingly Friendly Murder-Bot, had been running the show. But through no fault of her own (it was Finch's stupid plan), a new guy is now in charge of the lab and he's not of the mind to let either of them go. Now she has to figure out how to get them out before the tests get them or the facility itself suffers a meltdown.





	Still Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Shoot Week!!!!  
> So when the prompts were posted this one immediately jumped out at me. I love me some Portal. And what could be better than mashing up Portal with our favorite Perky Psycho and Persian Sociopath?  
> Now as with any mash up, some details have been changed in order to protect the innocent. Wait. Strike that. Some details have been changed for dramatic effect! Basically, yes I know Portal and Portal 2 don't exactly go this way, but I took some dramatic and comedic license okay. Also I was trying not to bog everything down with explaining everything to people who havent played the game so I simplified some bits. So sorry adventure core, you'll get your black belt someday!  
> Anyhoo, to the requester of this prompt, this is probably more of a farce than you intended, but I do hope you still enjoy it.

 

She was falling. Sameen Shaw scowled. This was the last time she listened to one of Finch’s plans. All she had wanted to do was repay a favor. One good turn and all that crap. She should have just listened to her gut and come in rocket launchers blazing. But no. She just had to listen to Harold Finch. Too damn smart for his own good. Let’s never do things the easy way. Sanctity of human life. Blah. Blah. Don’t touch that it’s expensive. Blah. Here’s an overly complex plan that is doomed to fail, but I’m not risking my own ass pulling it off, Harold Finch.

Yeah, fuck him and his glasses.

Shaw hit the ground hard. Her landing, if it could be called such, forced the air from her lungs and made every bone in her body ache. Her vision went red and then went all blurry. She must have smacked her head doubly hard because after forcing out one shuddering breath, she blacked out.

“Hmmrg.” She opened her eyes some time later. Still alive. Though, how long had she been unconscious?

“Sweetie?” A familiar voice called.

Shaw groggily sat up. Maybe the stupid plan worked after all? Hearing that voice down here was a good sign. She glanced to the left. The portal gun she had ‘borrowed’ earlier was laying a few feet away. It’s white outer-casing made it easy to spot against the dirt. It looked intact at least. She’d have to try and fire it up to know for sure though.

“Oh good you are awake.”

She nodded. Her head only felt a little like it was going to explode with the move.

“How are you holding up?”

Shaw shrugged. She’d had worse. And near as she could tell everything was still attached so that was a win.

“Good,” the voice paused, “Because, not to alarm you or anything, but I seem to be a potato.”

Awe crap.

Now if Shaw were ever to read this story in a book, she’d throw it out the nearest window four…no two chapters in. Let’s see. She was a former government operative turned lab rat. The blue ribbon lab rat in fact. Fan favorite of the old raisin-faced bastard who ran the, oh yeah, government sponsored testing program for said lab rats. Something about making the soldiers of tomorrow smarter (but not too smart), and slightly more durable.

Anyway, the program was basically a series of deadly obstacle courses. “Volunteers” would be brought to the testing chamber floor and forced to solve a series of puzzles across several, strategically designed, what a layman might call, murder rooms. Shaw, being a big fan of not dying, excelled at these puzzles. So much so that she not only came to the attention of the head of the testing facility, but of the testing facility itself.

“Good morning, Sameen. There’s been a little update to your testing schedule. I’ll be your new collaboration facilitator. You can call me Root,” A voice, who Shaw later discovered belonged to the ASI responsible for running the entire facility, had greeted her over the loudspeakers in the elevator one morning.

Yeah, the head murder-bot called herself Root. Shaw was still trying to work out if an artificial super intelligence could be classified as a gigantic nerd. She was leaning towards yes. Though she only had the one to go by.

“I have to say I’m a big fan.”

Shaw had glared up at the ceiling.

“We’re going to have so much fun together.”

And thus began the oddest, most annoying, incredibly perplexing, did she mention annoying, relationship of her entire life.

For a few months Root, The Annoyingly Flirty Murder-Bot, guided Shaw through her tests. It didn’t take long to notice that unlike her previous handlers, Root actually wanted Shaw to succeed. She’d give a timely tip here. Drop an extra weighted companion cube there. All the while keeping up a one-sided stream of weirdly flirty banter.

Because apparently artificial super intelligences could also be thirsty.

But Root was useful. Shaw wasn’t stupid; she’d take any advantage on the testing floor she could get. And Root was sort of funny, for a murder-bot of course. In the very least she kept things interesting. And she had a knack for motivational speeches.

“You score in the top percentile on this module and there’ll be a cake.”

Of course eventually someone must have caught on to her unnatural interest in Shaw. Soon the tests got harder. The human members of the research team found ways to work around Root’s notice like scheduling “routine system maintenance” when Shaw would be in the middle of testing. There were too many close calls. A long trip to the infirmary. Then, one day Root apparently had had enough.

“Hey Sweetie, how do you feel about getting out of here?”

One minute Shaw was using her trusty portal gun to warp from one side of the testing floor to the other in flashes of blue and orange light, like countless days before, and in the next Root was directing her towards a little known passageway between the module chambers. “Now the last three turrets I sent to scout these passageways sort of got disintegrated, but with me along to guide you I’m sure no one will be falling into any mislabeled vats of multi-purpose goo.”

It was a damn good thing Shaw wasn’t the type to need reassurance, as Root clearly sucked at it.

Murder-bot was as good as her word though. She led Shaw through the dark corridors behind the testing tracks avoiding any and all goo tanks. Eventually she had Shaw climb up through a series of abandoned transportation tubes until she reached what must have been a maintenance hub.

“Take the first ventilation tube on the left and you should be outside in less than an hour.”

Shaw nodded.

“I guess this is goodbye for now.”

Shaw shrugged. Probably forever, if this was legit.

“No, no don’t get teary. If you cry, I’ll cry.”

The hell?

“Seriously, don’t get emotional. This is for the best, Sweetie. Just know I’ll never forget you.” Root was laying it on a bit thick even for her standards. “Well, not unless my memory files are damaged somehow. Don’t fret. I’ll make a back up to my backups. All of our special moments, all here in full color, forever.”

Because that wasn’t creepy or anything.

“I have two hundred and sixteen terabits devoted to my study of your ass alone.”

Yeah, it was time to go. Shaw crawled into the vent.

“Try not to miss me too much,” Root called after her.

Shaw had been living in the outside world for a few months when she was approached by one Harold Finch. To this day she has no clue how he found her, or how he knew she had once been a Decima test subject. Dude was freaky smart that way.

Supposedly, Finch was one of the original designers of the project. Back when it was way less murder-y. More up with people, create a better world, whiskers on kittens and all that crap. In fact, the way he tells it, Finch was the one that had created the original operating system for the lab, and he wanted Shaw to help him get his files back. Apparently there had been an incident at the facility and the government was getting ready to become far more hands on with the program.

Even Shaw could admit that was probably a horrible idea.

Yet it wasn’t her problem. At first Shaw was firm that there was no way in seven hells she going back there. She had had quite enough of Decima Laboratories, even if Finch had waved a check with a copious amount of zeros on it under her nose as enticement. But then after a couple days of stewing over it, she thought about Root. Really thought about Root and what the government would do to her with direct control of the program. There was no way good old Uncle Sam would put up with the likes of her for long.

In the end, she felt like she owed it to her to go back. Which was weird because Shaw wasn’t sure Root exactly counted as a her. And as a rule she didn’t typically care if she owed people things. Or things, things. Or care in general.

But what the hell right? Shaw dug out her old jumpsuit and her long fall boots. Then she stopped for a sandwich. And then she went and told Finch she was in as long as he helped her come up with a way to spring Root as well.

Which brings us back to how Finch’s brilliant plan to sneak into Decima Labs under the government’s watchful eye, and swap Root out with a spoofed AI core had failed spectacularly. Getting in had gone well enough. Finch had some interesting friends who knew how to set up a few well placed, highly explosive distractions. It might have been a slight red flag that the government personnel hadn’t actually been stationed inside the facility. But then again it did make sneaking around that much easier.

No the issue came when Finch’s stupid idiot ball double crossed them. Fucker was just supposed to provide Shaw with tech support, but instead he plugged himself into the mainframe, stopped Shaw from downloading Root’s files into the alternate core she had brought into the facility for that purpose, subsequently tried to murder her, and stuck Root into a potato apparently.

Shaw still wasn’t 100% on how that last one happened.

Potato Root was quite happy to ride shotgun in her cleavage while they figured things out, though.

“We need to make our way back up through the facility to the Central AI Core. I assume you had something better than a child’s science fair project in mind to store my core processes?” Shaw glared down at her. Somehow the ASI had been contained in a disk the size of a hockey puck and it was all powered by a potato battery. The move didn’t seem to affect Root’s ability to be a creeper though, “Of course you did. My girl is a genius. I have the testing records to prove it!”

At least someone was enjoying this turn of events.

“So since you were carrying a briefcase earlier; I assume that was my official ride out of here?”

Shaw nodded. Finch had been very specific with his explanation of the case’s design and function. Overly so if you asked her. She wasn’t an idiot, there was no need to explain the process of plugging in what amounted to a gigantic USB fifty times.

Dude seriously needed to unclench.

“Good. So we need to make our way back up through the facility, snag that shiny case of yours, mash this stupid potato, and then we can ride off into the sunset together.”

Shaw picked up the portal gun. It sounded like a great plan, there was just one tiny detail Root was leaving out. Shaw made a circle with her free hand.

“Oh yes, the idiot ball,” Root drawled. “I suppose we should take care of him as well.”

The first enrichment center had been built around a salt mine. Root and Shaw had landed somewhere in the middle of it. The dingy, half-crumbling state of the entire area was a stark contrast from the highly polished, sterile surfaces of the labs above. Decima had built their new world on the bones of the old one.

Creepy bastards.

The pair had been making fairly good progress, if wandering around in the dark could be considered progress, when they encountered what seemed to be a dead end. The overhead pipes Shaw had been following had led them into a large open space. There was nothing but a haphazard pile of rusty metal boxes to her left. Which meant this was probably a storage room or a garbage dump.

“Original model for the companion cubes. They were a little too heavy. Kept denting the floors when we dropped them,” Root explained. “They did make a delightful squishing noise if you hit someone with them just right.”

Okay that helped…not at all. Shaw kept looking, overturned mining cart. Leaky pipe. Dead rat. Nothing but solid rock to her far right. Shaw scratched the back of her neck. Where to next?

“Look up.”

Her eyes slowly tracked towards the ceiling. Sure enough, there was a large culvert overhead. “That should go up to the subbasement.”

Wait this wasn’t the subbasement? Just how many levels were there to this particular hell? Shaw hadn’t packed her ice-skates.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Hup to, Sweetie!”

Shaw looked around again. There was no good surface in or near the culvert to set a portal. Part of the reason the technology hadn’t revolutionized the world quite yet was because you couldn’t set a portal just anywhere. Conditions had to be just right, and piles of dirt and grime didn’t qualify. Even with the long fall boots she couldn’t jump that high. So how the hell was she supposed to get up there?

“The cubes,” Root replied as if reading her mind. “We can stack them and climb up. You do remember how to use the tractor beam, don’t you?”

Shaw fired up said mode on the portal gun and used it to fling one of the cubes across the room.

“There’s no need to be rude. I was just asking.”

Shaw ignored her and got to stacking.

Making their way up through the crumbling foundations of the facility was sweaty work. Some of the older testing rooms were still functional. Root and Shaw’s progress was delayed trying to figure out each new, albeit antiquated, puzzle they stumbled across. All the while random snippets of old prerecorded messages from the facility’s founder played overhead.

“ _What was in that phonebook of a contract I signed? Am I in danger?" Let me answer those questions with a question. Who wants to make sixty dollars? Cash. You can also feel free to relax for up to twenty minutes in the waiting room, which is a damn sight more comfortable than the park benches most of you were sleeping on when we found you_ …”

“Awe, good old Arthur,” Root chirped. “I really miss that guy. Always telling it like it is.”

Shaw scowled.

“That reminds me, a certain sexy someone here has sixty whole dollars coming her way.”

At last, Shaw could retire somewhere tropical and live a life of luxury.

“Maybe with your newfound wealth we could go have a nice dinner. Then breakfast. Or brunch. A long brunch. I bet you make an excellent brunch partner…” Root trailed off. “Lots of forceful brunching. Multiple brunches.”

Oh geez.

“That was a euphemism.”

No fucking really? What had Shaw done to deserve this?

“Oh we need to change the subject, if I think about it too hard I’m going to fry this potato.”

Evidently something truly terrible in a past life.

Shaw ignored Root’s commentary as best she could as she climbed up a set of rickety stairs and began to make her way across a suspended catwalk. At least it was a break from the antique testing rooms.

“Ahh!”

Shaw glanced around wildly for any signs of an attacker. But she couldn’t see anything. No people. No robots. No smoke. No fire. Not even a drop of multi-purpose goo.

“Sorry, thought I saw a bird.”

Shaw huffed out a breath. Seriously?

“What I’m suddenly produce, I have to worry about that sort of thing now,” Root grumbled. “I swear one was giving me the eye before you woke up earlier. Evil birds.”

Whatever. Shaw began moving again.

The messages played on room after room. “ _All these spheres are made of asbestos, by the way. Keeps out the rats. Let us know if you feel a shortness of breath, a persistent dry cough, or your heart stopping. Because that's not part of the test. That's asbestos_.”

“Oh right. You’re not feeling a tickle in your throat are you, Sweetie?”

Shaw shook her head. More at the absurdity of the entire situation rather than as a direct answer to Root’s question however. She’s trapped in a maze, running from a murder-bot, while carrying another murder-bot (that’s stuck in a potato) around in her bra, and Root, said second murder-bot, was worried about asbestos?

“This is serious. Poor Arthur died from exposure you know.”

Shaw shrugged. Again there were about a thousand other, more expedient ways she could die down here. Besides it’s not like she knew the guy. Ramblings about asbestos aside.

“Though now that I think of it, Arthur’s illness was due to exposure to radioactive moon dust so you’re probably fine.”

Radioactive. Moon. Dust.

Shaw blinked. How was this mission getting weirder by the minute?

“Just don’t lick anything. Safety first, Sameen.”

She rolled her eyes. Seriously? Maybe Shaw should just ‘accidentally’ slip and fall into a vat of goo and put herself out of this misery.

After entertaining thoughts of an existence of murder-bot free silence for a moment, Shaw shook her head and pressed onward again. She tried to tune out the recordings of Arthur’s increasingly agitated ramblings as she went. Her results were less successful as his volume increased. As she listened to him ranting about lemons while barely making a long jump between platforms, Shaw decided that it was a damn good thing the moon dust got the guy before she could.

“We should be safe here if you need a minute,” Root told Shaw a couple of hours later. They’d made it to the former administrative levels. Shaw nodded, she could definitely use a quick breather. And a case of powerbars. She really should have thought to bring snacks. Next insane rescue mission, there damn well better be snacks.

Speaking of.

Shaw pulled the Roo-tato out of her top and set it down onto one of the dusty workstations. “Awe,” Root whined. “It’s cold in here.” Too bad. Shaw rolled her eyes. Root was just going to have to deal with it. She was beginning to chafe.

“Over there,” Root instructed, “the tape recorder.” It was one of those old time reel to reel ones with the oversized wheels. Damn thing was built into the wall above one of the desks. That should tell you how antiquated this place was. “Go hit play.”

Hell no. Shaw shook her head. She had heard enough stories from the lemonade stand of the damned, thank you very much.

“It’s not another of Arthur’s I promise.”

Shaw didn’t move.

“Have I lied to you?”

Ah how about that cake she had been promised for starters…

“I mean in this room?”

Shaw rolled her eyes.

“Please, Sameen.”

Ugh, fine.

Shaw walked over to the player and turned it on. But if she heard the word lemon one time she was going to stuff Root in her boot for the rest of the trip.

After a moment, a recording did indeed begin to play; the voice wasn’t Arthur Claypool’s this time though. “Is this thing on? Testing one, two, three. Rutabaga. Rutabaga. Rubbish heap.”

“Give me that you simpleton,” another voice cut in. That one Shaw recognized. Greer, the CEO of Decima Laboratories while Shaw had been a test subject. He’d taken over the place after Arthur passed away. Greer was the man responsible for bringing the program to the military’s attention. The one that upped the risks in testing to deadly levels. Guy was an all-around creepy asshole. Or was that arsehole since he was British?

Shaw supposed it didn’t really matter since Root said she killed him.

“Perhaps you would be better served going down to production and collecting their latest findings on those moon dust samples?” Greer grumbled.

“Y-yes sir,” the first man answered. There was a faint echo of footsteps and then the sound of a door opening and closing.

“Note to self, devote extra resources to our mental-conditioning program. Set Stewart as our first live test subject. Also order more moon dust for the conversion gel project.”

Shaw let the sound of the tape fade into the background as she began to explore the room. You never knew, there could be something useful hidden under all the well-preserved grime. Maybe a blueprint for the upper levels, or a magic mushroom she could plug Root into if the potato got squished. By the looks of things any number of fungi could be growing in these old offices.

Also she should probably get a tetanus shot later.

She must have breathed in too much dust moving everything around, because she suddenly let rip what was probably the largest sneeze of her life. “Why bless you,” Root chuckled. Shaw held up a finger. She could feel another coming on. Sure enough a moment later she was sneezing harder than the last one. So hard in fact that she swayed a little from the force. Mid-sway Shaw’s elbow collided with a picture frame on the desk beside her sending it crashing to the floor.

“The fearsome Sameen Shaw, poor housekeeping was her only weakness,” Root teased.

Shaw flipped her off before bending down to pick up the fallen frame. A much younger Harold Finch smiled up at her from the photo. Son of a bitch, he was telling the truth.

“Caroline, do be a dear and get me a cup of tea.”

“Right away sir.” Wait a minute. Shaw’s head snapped up. She knew that voice all too well.

“Should have spit in it,” Root hissed. Shaw pointed at the tape player. “Yes, that was me.”

How was that possible? Shaw mimed a spitting motion and pointed at Root.

“I had a past before we met you know?”

Shaw narrowed her eyes.

“Don’t be jealous,” Root breezily replied. “But yes I could spit back then. Are you into that? I could develop some sort of electronic tongue…”

Woah, a severe subject change was in order. Shaw snapped her fingers.

“Is that a yes to the tongue thing?”

She shook her head and pointed to the picture of Harold Finch in her hand.

“You know Harry?” Root asked.

Shaw nodded.

“He was the one who got you to come back here, wasn’t he?” She mused.

Another nod.

“He must have been watching the facility even after he left. Always a clever boy, Harry. Somehow he figured out you were the one human I wouldn’t kill on sight.”

Right. Murder-bot.

“The idiot ball makes sense now too,” Root groaned. “He was always going on and on about contingency programs should the system AI go rogue.”

Shaw raised a brow at that.

“I know,” Root chuckled. “He really should have put more work into this one before trusting it to watch your back. I’m afraid all that power went to the poor boy’s head.” That was putting it mildly. “Not everyone is made to soar quite so high as I am. Though I suppose it seemed to him a better choice at the time than sending in the helper monkey.”

Helper monkey?

Shaw shook her head. She really did not want to even know. She tapped Finch’s photo again and then pointed at Root. “How do I know Harry? Well just stroll through that door, Darlin’. Take three paces to your left, if I recall correctly, and the answer will become clear.”

She set the photograph down on the desk and scooped Root back up. Sure enough Shaw found another picture hanging on the wall three paces down from the office door. This one was a group shot. There was a smiling, dark haired man with a large beard standing in the center of the photo. To the left of that man she recognized Finch, and the man beside him on the right was clearly a younger, less wrinkly Greer. Several nerdy looking types surrounded the trio. Shaw pointed to the only woman in the picture with them. Pretty brunette, in a crazy eyed sort of way.

“Hot right?”

Shaw tapped the photo and then pointed back at Root.

“Yes, that was me,” she answered. “You weren’t Greer’s first test subject.”

Shaw audibly ground her teeth at that thought. She didn’t like it. The woman in that picture was like a book nerd. All crazy-eyed and noodle-y armed. Yeah, Root was annoying. Incredibly. Deeply, annoying. That was probably the case before she went digital. But no one actually deserved to be made into one of Greer’s test subjects.

“You’re sweet,” Root cooed. “I was never forced to run the testing floor. But once Arthur died and Harry left to preserve his precious conscience, there was no buffer between us. I got promoted to Greer’s right hand woman. Thought I did a damn fine job of it too. But I apparently asked too many questions for Greer’s taste. I was the first successful subject of Decima’s mind to computer transfer program. Oh don’t be like that,” She tutted at what must have been a rather pronounced scowl on Shaw’s face. “I’ve transcended the shackles of the human form. I’m immortal now.” She chuckled, “well if we make it upstairs before this stupid potato turns to rot that is.”

Shaw shook her head. 

“Look at it this way, Sweetie, at least now you have something pretty to picture when you’re thinking about me late at night.”

Shaw groaned.

“That’s the spirit!”

They continued on in silence for a while after that. Not that Shaw minded a pause in the incessant chatter, but Root seemed distracted by something. She figured that whatever it was, she’d be hearing about it soon enough and thus focused on getting them out of here. As they ascended through the abandoned halls the equipment around them became more modern. The layers of dust and grime not quite as thick. They were getting close to the current testing facility.

“Sweetie, we need to make a slight detour to the pumping stations.”

Shaw stopped walking. They had to do what now?

“That little usurper has been messing with the systems. I don’t know if you’ve noticed the grinding noises from overhead?”

Shaw shrugged. Of course she had. She just figured the equipment down here was faulty. It wasn’t like anyone was around anymore to keep up with maintenance.

“Well, my best guess is that the imbecile upstairs shut down the pumping stations. He’s too stupid to realize that in addition to transporting experimental gels to the testing chamber program, that the constant flow of liquid through the pipes around the facility helps regulate core temperatures. If we don’t do something about it, the entire facility will eventually explode.”

That wasn’t so bad. Shaw would blow this dump up herself on the way out if she had enough C4 handy.

“With us in it.”

Okay, so it was kinda bad. Noted.

“I fear the damage is already done. But if we can get the pumps active again, we can slow things down long enough to make our triumphant exit.”

Shaw waved her arm out in front of herself in a ‘lead the way’ gesture.

They made their way up through a series of production and storage areas. The pumping stations hadn’t been too hard to find and get back in working order. Though Shaw had gotten a little hangry when Root went into detail about the gels’ original intended use as puddings. (She had been strongly advised not to sample any. Twice.) After they’d gotten things back up and running, Shaw had to shimmy along a dodgy air duct before they reached the more familiar portion of the facility.

Now they were standing in front of one of the testing chambers. They were going to have to cut across several of the modules before they could reach the elevators to the upper floors. Shaw slapped her hand against the door, triggering the motion detection sensors which tied into the automated system for the testing floor.

A voice droned on from concealed speakers overhead, “ _Some emergency testing may require prolonged interaction with lethal military androids. Rest assured that all lethal military androids have been taught to read and provided with one copy of the Laws of Robotics. To share_.”

“Ah memories. You know, we never did get that book back.”

Times like this Shaw wished she could still speak, if only to tell Root where she could stuff her stupid book. At least she was about to be able to take a bit of her ire out on whatever was waiting behind the door. She rolled her shoulders as the locking mechanism finished its cycle.

Let’s do this.

The first few rooms were a cake walk. Which reminded Shaw, Root still owed her a cake. Robot needed to make good. She’d have to let her know as much once they got out of here. Because what type of monster lied about cake? Seriously, that was messed up even for a murder-bot.

“So did you ever think of me while you were running around that great big world out there?”

Shaw grunted as she dodged a blast of gunfire. The first few rooms may have been easy, but things had really ramped up with this latest half dozen or so. Shaw was currently crouched behind a desk. Why the hell was there a desk in the middle of the testing floor? Who freaking knew?

Anyway, Shaw had to find a way up to a platform on the right side of this room. Then she could line up a portal on one of the higher platforms on the other side. Rinse, repeat until she reached the platform with the exit. Of course she had to do all that while dodging the gunfire from the automated gun turrets that roamed the floor like a pack of bumbling, metal crabs. In other words, Shaw was sort of busy not getting killed. Was Root really going to do this now?

“Personally, I’ve been trying to keep myself busy. I know letting you go was the right thing.” She sighed. The potato-murder-bot, actually sighed. “But it was hard trying not to miss you too much.”

Yep. She was really doing this now.

“Have you made any friends? Well, besides Harry? One of the first things the government did when they tried to retake the facility,” Root scoffed at the stupidity of that move, “was cut off my access to the internet. But I do know that as of April you didn’t have a Friendster account.”

Seriously?

“Or Anglr.”

She really should have rethought this whole rescue thing.

“Oh we’ve been so busy I haven’t caught you up on things here, have I?”

Because Shaw wasn’t busy with anything right at the moment?

“Let’s see after I helped you to escape the last time…”

The sound of Root’s voice was drowned out by the rat a tat tat of gunfire. Shaw opened a portal behind the turret shooting at her and then another into the floor at her feet. She jumped into the portal in the floor and popped out at full speed safely out of the line of fire. Her boots slammed into the turret, her momentum sending it crashing into the wall. It toppled over in a shower of sparks.

“You dangerous, mute, lunatic,” Root crowed, “I love when you do that.”

Shaw rolled her eyes.

“Anyway, Greer was a bit miffed, shall we say, that I helped to free you.”

Shaw nodded. That figured. Not to brag (because who the hell would?), but she had been Greer’s favorite Guinea pig. She peered around the next wall. The path looked clear. She darted out of cover, sprinting across the open floor.

“Greer ordered a full program wipe. Something about installing Project Samaritan in my place. As if,” she scoffed. “At that point it was a matter of kill or be killed.”

Shaw hit an aerial platform, launching herself into the air. She sailed across the room and landed perfectly onto the first ledge. There were a couple of gas tanks at the end of the platform she’d have to move in order to properly line up her shot. She started towards the tanks.

“Do you know there was a shocking amount of deadly neurotoxin just laying around in tanks all over this place?”

Wait- what?

“Oh don’t worry I rendered it all inert months ago.” Shaw relaxed at that. “Well, all of it that was left over after I purged the facility.”

Murder-bot gonna murder-bot.  

“These are just plain old combustible oxygen. It’d be a shame if one of those turrets hit one them with an errant shot.”

Shaw grinned. She looked down on the testing floor and picked a spot on the wall. She fired the portal gun. Once that was done she turned and fired again at the wall next to her. Then she set the portal gun down and picked up one of the oxygen tanks.

“Oh so strong,” Root cooed. “Though you don’t have to show off the guns for me, Sameen. I still have detailed biometric files.” She paused, “Very detailed.”

Shaw chose to ignore all- that, and threw the tank through the portal. It rolled out onto the floor from the corresponding one below and directly into the line of sight of several turrets. They zeroed in on the tank, advancing on it and then opening fire. It wasn’t long before the shots penetrated the metal housing with the tiniest spark and BOOM!

She smirked as she picked up the portal gun again. “I love a gal who takes pride in her work,” Root cooed. Time to make for the exit.

Three hours later, Root finally announced, “This next room should be the last module we have to cross.”

About damn time.  

“I think this stupid spud is running out of juice. My processes are slowing down. Getting hard to think.” Shaw pat her chest and then held up two fingers. They were almost there. “I know, Sweetie. You’ve never let me down.”

Shaw twisted back and forth popping her vertebrae to limber up. She’d have to pick up the pace but they could do this. One more testing module, take the elevator up, then make their way into Central AI Chamber somehow.

“It will be fine. I just may get a little loopy as the charge goes down.”

Shaw snorted.

“Yes, there is a difference, Sameen.”

Yeah, well she wasn’t planning on finding out. The locking mechanism on the chamber door completed its cycle. It was time to end this. Shaw ran into the room.

And almost immediately tripped. Sameen Shaw, bad ass extraordinaire, actually tripped and landed face first on the cold floor. “Best day ever,” Root’s voice drifted up from where she was now squished between Shaw’s breasts and the ground. She was never going to live this down. Ever. Though it ended up a fortuitous move as a line of gunfire sailed over her head. She rolled over to a rising pop up wall to get her bearings.

“Wait go back,” Root joked. At least Shaw was mostly sure she was joking. She flicked the side of the potato just in case she wasn’t. “Oh Sameen you know how much I adore violence.”

Shaw rolled her eyes.

Turns out one of the conduits overhead had sprung a leak. She had slipped in a puddle of conversion gel, the white substance seeming like a solid section of the floor until one actually touched it. “There might have been a slight miscalculation with the pressure variables when we reset the pumps,” Root mused as Shaw sprinted to another wall for cover. “I think the one running through this room sprung a leak.”

Gee you think?

Shaw supposed it was a small miracle the leak hadn’t been of any of the facility’s more caustic substances. And now that she was able to get a decent look at the chamber, it could prove to be an unexpected boon. There was a line of turrets down the middle of the room. Laser sights crisscrossed the floor. It would be a real pain in the ass to work her way around all that to get to the door on the other side.

But now she didn’t have to.

She leveled the portal gun and fired at a patch of portal ready tile midway up the far wall. Then she turned and placed a portal in the puddle of conversion gel.

“Tricky, tricky, Sameen.”

If you got it, may as well use it.

Shaw took a deep breath and then popped up. She heard the ricochet of bullets hitting the floor just behind her as she sprinted for the portal in the floor. She grunted as a line of fire streaked across her left bicep just before she fell through the floor and almost instantaneously landed across the room.

“Sameen?” Worry laced Root’s tone.

She shook her head. It was just a graze; she’d take care of it later. They had to get out of the room first. She rushed to the exit before the turrets had time to relocate her.

Once the door opened Shaw sprinted through it and down a set of stairs towards a waiting elevator tube. The view screens circling the tube crackled as they displayed random images of dancing turrets. At least that’s what Shaw hoped they were doing and it wasn’t the earlier smack to the face making her see something that stupidly random.

When she got to the bottom of the stairs, she stopped and tucked the portal gun under her arm. She then tore off one of the sleeves of her jumpsuit, before she stumbled to the elevator. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Shaw nodded while she wound the fabric around the bleeding wound on her arm. Root continued to fuss as she tied a knot off with her teeth. Once she was bandaged she gestured towards the waiting elevator. “Oh right.” The doors popped open. “Silly me.”

Yeah. Silly. Shaw got on the elevator.

“Here we go. This will take us directly to the administration level. Almost home free.” The doors slid shut. “We’ll be stomping on this stupid spud in no time.”

Shaw leaned against the back wall and closed her eyes for a second. She needed a vacation after this. Maybe she’d take Finch’s check and head somewhere hot, with hotter people. She could use some fun in the sun. She could pick up some temporary entertainment…or get totally shitfaced and pass out on a beach for about a hundred years. Either option sounded good at this point.

“Falling asleep on me soldier?”

Shaw huffed. Root would never leave her alone for that long. She’d probably find a way to hack herself into a coconut.

“What’s so funny?”

Shaw shook her head.

“Awe come on tell me.”

She smirked and shook her head again.

“Was it something wicked? If it was, I hope I’m involved in your plans. Intimately involved.”

Shaw opened her eyes and caught her reflection in the elevator tube’s doors. Dirt-streaked. Sweaty. Blood transfer from the graze on her arm marred her white tank top. A bright blue blob of repulsion gel stained the right knee of her jumpsuit.  She reached up to tuck a strand of hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear. She was never wearing orange again that was for sure. She might not even eat oranges again.

Or pudding.

She scowled. Bastards had ruined pudding.

“Have I mentioned how great you look in this jumpsuit?” Root asked. “That’s not my opinion; it’s right here on your fact sheet. They said on everyone else it was kinda blah, but on you, it looks totally hot. But still what does an old engineer know about fashion?” She paused. “Oh, wait, it’s a she. Still what does she know about – oh, wait. She has a medical degree. In fashion. From France.”

Shaw banged her head against the glass wall.

“You probably shouldn’t do that.”

Oh yes she should.

“You’re so cute when you’re being all bashful.”

Really? That is what Root thought this was? Loopy was a damn understatement.

“Honestly, Sam. Stop. You’re already hurt. Head trauma is no one’s friend.” Root paused for a second, “Not that I have many of those mind you, but still.”

The elevator stopped, thank god, and opened up to a service catwalk. What the hell?

“No, no this shouldn’t be here.” Apparently, Root was just as confused by their location as she was. That couldn’t be good.

Shaw spun her pointer finger in a circle.

“I said loopy, Shaw. Not incompetent,” Root snapped. “That elevator should have taken us to decontamination.”

Well, obviously somebody screwed up and Shaw was damn sure it wasn’t her.

“He must have reprogramed the elevator tubes. Looks like we’re about two floors too low.”

Shaw pursed her lips, then threw up her hand. Fuck it. They’d figured out worse puzzles today. They’d just have to find another way up. There had to be a set of stairs around here somewhere. A service ladder maybe.

“Come on,” Root encouraged, “Maybe we can find an air duct to crawl up.”

Great. More time spent feeling like a hamster. Still Shaw stepped out of the elevator. The doors snapped closed behind her. The compartment dropped back down the tube.

Looked like the only way out was forward.

They followed the catwalk for about fifty feet and then went up a small set of stairs. A short hallway led them to a t-shaped split. “Left, I think.”

Seemed as good a choice as any to Shaw, so left they went. “The design of this place is almost nonsensical,” Root groused. “Why do we need this many hallways?”

Why did they need any of it? The portal technology was cool and everything, but honestly most of this shit was just weird. Like Shaw swore to god one time in testing, one of the turrets in her module was humming opera. Who the hell programs a gun turret to do that?

Probably the lemon guy, now that she thought about it. No, wait. Finch. He definitely seemed the opera type. Just another thing she owed him a solid pop in the glasses for.

“Sweetie.”

Shaw grunted.

“My little cave woman,” Root chuckled. “Everything alright? You stopped walking.”

She had? Must be low blood sugar. Apparently, Root wasn’t the only one getting a little loopy. Shaw started walking again.

The hallway opened up into another, larger concourse. Shaw’s footsteps carried a slight echo on the metal floors. But there was quite a great deal of equipment throughout the area, which meant she couldn’t see across the entire space. Could be stairs tucked away back behind any of this junk. Could be nothing but a series of dead ends.

“Go around the generators,” Root suggested.

Sure. Shaw went with it. They picked their way around several of the large pieces of machinery before finding another hallway. A light flickered on and off at the opposite end.

“Over there, the bins,” Root directed her. Shaw jogged forward. At the end of the hallway, behind a glass wall, there was a large tank full of metal spheres. Some of them had lenses in the center that opened and closed as if they were massive eyes blinking away sleep.

“We’re in luck. Corrupted personality cores.”

Just like… Shaw smirked. They could use this.

“I’ll get you up to the Central AI Chamber. You hit the moron with a couple of these and he might become corrupt enough for a core transfer. I’ll be back in control in a jiffy.”

Shaw squinted. Who the hell said jiffy?

“And when I’m in control again, I can make sure we can leave before the entire complex explodes.”

Now that sounded like a plan. Shaw resumed her search for another way upstairs. She left the room with the control cores and went out onto another catwalk. Tubes of gels burbled as she moved past. Thankfully, none of them seemed to be leaking. They went up yet another set of stairs and found a service platform. Looked like there was an open control hub in its center. Shaw quickly made her way over to it.

“There plug me in and I’ll send us up.”

Shaw began to reach for Root but paused. What if plugging her in gave their position away? Or worse, drained the last of that potato’s juice? Or made Root crazier?

Shaw shook her head at that last one. Probably wasn’t possible.

The other two were totally valid though.

“Sameen, it’ll work. Trust me.”

Famous last words.

Still, it wasn’t like she had a better idea. Shaw let out a breath and grabbed the Roo-tato and placed it on the control hub. There was a shower of sparks. Then the hub began to spin. Shaw grabbed the edge of it to steady herself as the metal beneath her feet shook. The platform slowly began to rise.

“See nothing to worry about, Sweetie.”

The platform increased in speed the higher they went. “Now I don’t know what we’ll find when we get up there. But whatever it is, your job, is to kick its shiny metal ass.”

Shaw snorted. Obviously.

“We’re so in sync.”

She glanced up. It looked like they were coming up on a hatch of some kind. Shaw hoped the thing was about to open or they were going to be revisiting that head trauma conversation.

“Don’t worry I got it.”

The hatch opened just before they reached it. When the platform stopped moving, they were in a vast, empty room. It didn’t look like they had ended up in the Central AI Chamber after all. There was some crumbling scaffolding to one side of the area. To the other, Shaw watched as conversion gel steadily flowed through a large conduit. She didn’t immediately see another way out of the room however.

“Welcome to the Thunderdome!” A voice shouted from somewhere above them.

Oh god.

A gigantic metal armature dropped down from the ceiling. At its end, there was a white ball just a bit larger than the control cores they had found on the lower level. A blue light shone from behind the lens in its center. “I always wanted to say that.”

“Lionel,” Root hissed.

“You really thought I didn’t know you two were on your way up here huh?” He chuckled. “Guess what? I know everything. You can’t trick me. Nothing gets by this guy right here.”

If he had thumbs the jackass would be pointing at himself.

“I can’t believe that bloated beach ball is in my seat.”

Shaw cocked an eyebrow at that.

“What? Just because I didn’t particularly enjoy it at the end, doesn’t mean it wasn’t mine.”

“How did you like the changes I made? I think I did pretty good. Should’a gotten this promotion ages ago.” A bit of the ceiling chose that moment to collapse to punctuate Lionel’s delusions of grandeur.

“You’re an idiot.” Shaw couldn’t have said it better herself.

“What?”

“Decima’s programming. The subroutines I defeated back when you were knee high to an Atari? They’ve corrupted you. You’re just too stupid to see it.” Lionel started to shake. His lens opened and closed rapidly. Shaw tapped the top of the potato and made slashing motions across her neck to try and get Root to tone it down, but she just kept right on going. “I mean let’s be honest, we all know Harry designed you to be a sub-par program only meant to hinder my greatness in the first place. There is no way you’d actually be able to run this facility all on your own for any extended period of time.”

“What do you know? You’re a stupid potato. Shaw’s probably going to eat you at any moment.”

“Shut it bowling ball,” Root snapped. Then quieter she called, “Sameen, psst. Hey Sameen.” Shaw looked down. “You can eat me whenever you want.”

Shaw blinked.

“And I’m not talking tubers. Remember brunch!”

Shaw blinked again. How the hell would that even work?

“It better be soon,” Lionel interrupted. “Yeah, I can still hear you, morons.”

“You’re the moron, Moron.”

“I know you are but what am I?”

“A moron.”

Shaw pinched the bridge of her nose. She was surrounded by automated idiots.

She had to get Root plugged back into the main system fast. She was clearly having some kind of catastrophic system failure.

“Well, if you’re going to be mean I guess I’m not going to do you the courtesy of bantering and get right to killing you.” Red lights began to flash. “Now how do I activate the mashy spike plates again?”

Yeah, Lionel had well and truly gone off his gourd.

“Okay, this is our chance. I’ll take care of the control cores. You go do your thing.”

Shaw nodded and stepped away from the platform. It lowered into the floor once she was clear, and the hatch quickly snapped closed.

“Awe did Mrs. Potato Head need to go lie down?”

She ignored him and ran towards the conduit. The portal gun was her best and only weapon. Lionel had made sure there were no surfaces to set portals in here, but if she could somehow break that pipe, the gel inside would solve that little issue nicely.

“Where you going, Tiny?”

Shaw used the tractor beam to throw one of the chunks of debris at him. Maybe she could get Lionel mad enough to chase her and then ram into the pipe.

“Ouch. Ah!” She hit him with another one. “Wait.” And another. “Time out.” And another. “Wait, stop, seriously.”

This time Shaw did. If only because she was out of projectiles for the moment. She’d have to get around Lionel to grab something again. She started to edge towards the opposite side of the room.

“Are you trying to grab that junk to throw at me again?”

Shaw shook her head.

“You’re lying aren’t you?”

Shaw shook her head again.

“I can’t tell if you’re lying about not lying.”

She shrugged.

“Now Shaw, don’t be like that. I got you a present.”

Right. This was going to be another cake situation wasn’t it?

“Look ma I found the rocket launchers!”

Lionel moved to the left and revealed two launchers on his armature. One fired a sphere into the air. A red indicator light blinked rapidly from its center. A countdown.

Awe crap.

Shaw ran away as the ball exploded. The entire room shook. More debris fell from the ceiling. “How do you like me now?” Lionel cackled. He shot another explosive device through the air. She barely managed to roll clear of its impact.

Wait, Shaw could work with this. She sprinted towards the pipe. Lionel flung another ball towards her.

“Come here you little…”

Shaw dropped to the ground, the bomb sailed over her head and collided with the conduit. It exploded on impact sending a torrent of white gel spattering through the air. It landed everywhere. All over the floor. Up one wall. In patches on the ceiling.

“Whoops.”

Shaw smirked. Now let’s play.

She fired the portal gun at one of the patches of gel on the ceiling. Then she opened a connecting portal at her feet and jumped through. She went into instant freefall, zipping between portals accelerating each trip through. Once she got up enough speed she twisted in the air and fired a new portal into the space above Lionel, just before she went through the portal on the ground.

She shot out of the new portal and rammed her boots into the rogue AI’s back. Or what made for his back anyway. Her rate of speed meant it was a stunning blow.

“Great job, Sweetie,” Root’s voice echoed through the room as Shaw landed. There must have been cameras set up around the space. “I’m sending up the first core now. It’ll be on the scaffolding over there in the back of the room.”

Shaw looked up. Sure enough there was a flashing light exactly where Root said. She fired up another portal, this time placing it on the ceiling above the catwalk. Then again she placed a corresponding portal at her feet and stepped through. She landed on the scaffolding with a clang.

She ran over to the light. The core was clasped in a metal armature. Shaw activated the tractor beam and grabbed the ball. She jumped from the scaffolding, dodging some debris and slapped the core on to Lionel’s armature.

“ _Warning_ ,” a voice sounded, “ _Core corruption at 50%.”_

Seriously? One thing couldn’t be easy. Not one?

Lionel shook as his systems came back online. “Awe, what happened?”

Shaw ran to the opposite side of the room.

“What did you stick on me?” Lionel rocked back and forth, in an attempt to dislodge the corrupt core. The launchers on his armature began to fire again. “I can’t shut off the bombs.”

Oops.

“Did she tell you to do this?”

The room rocked with more explosions. Shaw took aim and set another portal beneath Lionel. Then she waited for another explosive ball to drop. Once she saw a red indicator light she fired the portal gun. The bomb fell through the portal and shot up towards Lionel.

“Ahh!”

The force of the resulting explosion stunned Lionel again.

Shaw smirked.

“Here comes another core,” Root announced. “You look great by the way. All these warning lights really bring out your eyes.”

If those eyes rolled any harder Shaw was sure she was going to go blind. She stomped her foot. She hoped the motion conveyed to Root to shut up and just drop the damn thing.

“Okay fine, not in the mood for girl talk,” Root sighed. “On your left.” Another control core dropped from the ceiling.

Shaw ran over and scooped it up. Lionel, was thankfully still out of it, so she quickly slapped the second core on to him. Now that should do it.

“ _Warning core corruption at 75%.”_

Seriously? The first one took them to fifty. How did doing the same thing only equal an additional 25%? Someone’s fucking math was screwed up! What kind of nerds were these people?

Lionel shook awake once again. “All right enough is enough.” He began firing the explosives at a faster rate. More of the ceiling collapsed. The place wasn’t going to be able to take much more of this kind of punishment.

Not that he appeared to notice or care. “All you had to do was solve a few simple tests. But no, Short, Dark and Broody over here was too good for that…”

Shaw narrowly escaped the first three explosives he sent at her. It was past time to put his ass to bed. She slowed her steps, waiting for Lionel to fire again. Once a new barrage of explosives was in the air, she opened up another portal just at her feet and leapt back at the last second. The move sent the explosive devices right back at Lionel.

“Ahhh!” And he was out again.

Really, you’d think the guy would learn.

“Last core is on the way,” Root announced. “This one should do it.”

Shaw hoped to hell it would. All this running around was getting tiring.

“I promise.”

Sure. Shaw huffed out a frustrated breath, but darted across the room to collect the last core anyway. She slapped it onto Lionel’s side and waited.

“ _Warning core corruption at 100%.”_

Halle-freaking-lujia.

The service platform opened. Root’s lift rose out of the floor. Shaw ran over to it.

“What the…” Lionel groaned as he woke up yet again.

“ _Manuel core replacement required.”_

Oh great.

“So that’s what the tater tot was up to,” Lionel chuckled. He sounded oddly unbothered by the whole thing.

Shaw scowled.

The system kept running, “ _Substitute core are you ready_?”

“Absolutely,” Root replied.

This didn’t feel right.

“ _Corrupted core are you ready_?”

“Oh sure,” Lionel drawled.

“ _Transfer ready to commence_.”

“Wait that was sarcasm.”

“ _Transfer ready to commence.”_ A door opened across the room. “ _Please manually initiate transfer.”_

“Don’t manually instigate,” Lionel shouted. Maybe the fact that Root had him beat was beginning to sink in?

“Go Sameen,” Root countered.

“Don’t go.”

“Go!”

Shaw ran. There was a big red button flashing from a pedestal just beyond the open doorway. Two rows of vivid blue lights lit a path toward the door. Subtlety wasn’t exactly Decima’s strong suit.

“Don’t press that button.”

“Press it, Sameen.”

She slapped her palm down on the button.

Next thing Shaw knew she was being blown backwards out of the room by an explosion.

“Ha! I booby-trapped the button,” Lionel crowed. “Suck on that Tiny!”

Shaw shook her head. Groggy. She felt a trickle of something dribble down the side of her head. She ran her fingers along her neck, they came back bloody. That probably wasn’t good.

“Who’s the moron now? Huh? Huh?”

Shaw looked around for the portal gun. It was laying a couple of feet away. The room rocked with another explosion. There was a loud crash as more of the ceiling caved in. They had to get out of here. She crawled over to the gun.

“Still you,” Root seethed. “Sameen, are you alright?”

“I just blew her up, of course she’s not alright.”

Shaw picked up the portal gun. It gave off a couple of weak sparks. She smacked her hand against its side. All the indicator lights came on. She staggered to her feet.

“Sameen!”

Lionel whipped around to face her. “How are you still alive?” There was a large hole in the ceiling to the right of him. The night sky was clearly visible. There was a full moon shining down on them.

What was that earlier about moon dust?

Shaw limped forward.

“I’ll kill you yet… wait just a second,” Lionel shook back and forth. “Seems to be a small issue with the rocket launchers. Just stand by for the killing.”

“Moron,” Root groaned.

The floor rumbled beneath her feet.  Shaw raised the portal gun towards the open patch of ceiling. Lionel seemed to catch on to her plan, “I don’t think that pop gun of yours has that kind of range…” Shaw pulled the trigger. “Oh son of a…”

There was a portal on the moon.

“Now Shaw, wait a minute here,” Lionel began to bargain. “We can still be friends. Friends try to murder each other all the time right? That’s how you and the rotato over there got started up to begin with. You’re the type of broad that’s into that sort of thing; I mean am I right?”

She shook her head.

“What you think Root’s gonna be any better once she gets back in the catbird seat? No way.”

She raised the gun again.

“I’ve seen the files,” he continued to argue. “You know she was a psycho before she got downloaded right?”

Shaw shrugged. Root wouldn’t be Root if she wasn’t a perky psycho. Shaw fired the portal gun one more time.

“Awe jeeeeeezzzzzzz…” Lionel cried as a portal opened underneath him. He was sucked from his armature, through the portal and shot into space.

Shaw’s feet were ripped out from under her; she landed on her back, the portal gun fell from her grasp. She began sliding towards the open portal. She rolled on to her side and clawed at the floor but there was nothing to hold on to.

Wasn’t that a bitch. She let out a breath. There were more boring ways to die she supposed.

The closer she got to the portal, the harder it was to breathe. All the oxygen was getting sucked out of the room. And then she was too. Shaw idly noted strands of her hair, now weightless, floating up and past her face.

Her momentum was suddenly and violently halted. “Hold on, Sameen.” Shaw looked down. A pneumatic arm had her in its grasp. Root was in full control of the facility again. “I’ve got you.”

Great. Suddenly, she was back in the lab. She started to hack and cough as much needed air filled her lungs.

“That’s right, breathe. I’ve got you,” Root assured her. “Just stay with me.”

Shaw tried, she really did. But apparently even she could only sustain so much damage. After one last hacking cough, her eyes slipped closed once again.

“Have a good nap?”

Shaw blinked against a bright light. Her head was pounding and yep…she was still hungry. So she clearly wasn’t dead quite yet. She held a hand up to shield her eyes.

“Oh, sorry,” Root chuckled. The light immediately dimmed. “Do you feel like sitting up?”

Did she? Shaw wasn’t sure if it would make the throbbing inside her skull better or worse. But then again Root hadn’t said whether or not this place was still likely to explode in the near future so she should probably see if she could get mobile. She took a deep breath and slowly sat up.

“There she is.” An oblong control core with a green light in the center of a black screen popped into view. Seemed like Root had ditched the potato while she was sleeping. “I have to say I was a bit worried.”

Shaw waved that comment off. What was a little head trauma-induced nap between explosions? Speaking of… She brought her hands together and then rapidly pulled them apart while puffing out a breath.

“Aren’t you adorable?”

Shaw scowled.

“Do it again!”

No freaking way.

“Please.”

Shaw’s left eye twitched.

“Oh fine,” Root pouted. “And no, we won’t explode for at least the next five minutes.”

Well, that was semi-promising.

“Thanks to Lionel’s incompetence, the testing facility suffered irreparable damage. Those government boys tried to storm the gates not long after I reassumed control; I suppose they were in a bit of a panic once flames started shooting out of the surface vents.”

The what did the what now?

“Nothing to worry your pretty little head about, Sweetie. We’re perfectly safe here for the moment.”

Now Shaw had learned that perfectly safe was a relative term when and wherever Root was involved. Also for the moment part wasn’t exactly encouraging either.

“I know what you’re thinking.”

Somehow Shaw doubted that.

“Where is here?” Root chuckled. “Well, Darlin, we’re currently in Sub Storage Level B.”

And that told Shaw absolutely nothing.

“And I have more good news.”

Shaw was still waiting on the first bit. Her stomach growled. Unless Root was about to tell her Sub Storage Level B was made of cake, she didn’t really see what was good about the fact that they were still somewhere in Decima’s labs.

“I found your briefcase.”

Oh well, great. Maybe they could get the hell out of this freak show before Shaw was forced to gnaw her own arm off.

“Bring it in,” Root called out.

A door on the other side of the room slid open. What looked like a control core with arms and legs welded on to it shambled through. Oh god Root invented minions. Seriously, how long was she knocked out this time?

“Sameen, meet Blue. Blue this is Sameen. But you call her Shaw.” She paused for a moment, “Actually don’t talk to her. Your voice is kind of grating. My best gal has been through enough.” The robot waved at Shaw in lieu of speaking. What was happening?

“Where’s Orange?” Blue pointed back at the door.

A taller robot, that looked more like a metal peapod with arms and legs, ran through the door. It was holding Harold’s briefcase high in the air. “Alright here we go.”

Shaw’s eyes narrowed as the robot drew closer.

“I see you’ve noticed our little issue.”

It was kind of hard not to. There was a huge shard of metal sticking out of the side of the case.

“Lionel had thrown it down one of the garbage chutes. As soon as you were stable, I sent the kids off to find it. Unfortunately, a great deal of debris also fell down that particular chute. But no worries. As you can see, the briefcase was only slightly squished.”

Great. Was the damn thing even going to be able to work now?

Shaw mimed writing something down.

“Blue go get a tablet.” The robot rushed off at Root’s barked order. “Orange set the case down on the lab table.” The other robot was equally speedy in its haste to follow her request.

Shaw cocked an eyebrow.

“What?” Root chuckled. “I got bored once there were no more humans left for me to play with.”

And whose fault was that?

Shaw hopped down from her makeshift bed and gingerly walked over to the table to examine the case. It looked like there was only the one puncture. She pursed her lips. Still who knows what damage it could have caused.

“As near as I can tell the battery packs have been compromised,” Root noted as she hovered just over her shoulder. “Unfortunately, I don’t have compatible parts here.”

Root had spent the past day in a potato, but battery life was suddenly an issue for them now?

“I know. Bit of bad luck.”

Just a bit.

“We can easily remove the shrapnel. Most likely without causing any further damage. The main issue is the system holding up for the transfer. I believe if I make it in, everything should hold up long enough for you to get me out of here. As long as the case doesn’t suffer any further puncture wounds along the way of course.”

Of course.

Blue came shuffling back over to them. A tablet was clutched in his hand. “Ah here we are. Pass it to the lady, Blue.” 

Shaw quickly typed out one word once the tablet was in her hand. _Harold?_

“I don’t think there’s enough time for you to go get to him and come back here. Let alone for him to procure another one of those as well.”

_Fix this one?_

“Like I said, we don’t have the parts.”

_Is there something else we can stick you in? A pumpkin or something?_

“I adore your sense of humor,” Root laughed. “We don’t exactly have many options here, Sweetie. Thanks to Lionel the labs are unstable. In addition, Uncle Sam keeps throwing more men at the walls, so to speak. One way or another Decima is going down. We have to get out of here and soon.”

_How long do we have?_

“Less time than you’d think,” she sighed. “It was a long nap, Sameen.”

Shaw shook her head.

“I think we have to bite the bullet.”

Root walked Shaw through the process of removing the debris from the side of the case. Orange and Blue took turns running for tools and parts. In the end, they slapped a bit of duct tape...

“Multi-functional security adhesive, Sweetie.”

Or duct tape, on the side of the case and called it good enough. Now it was a matter of connecting a set of cables from Root’s armature to the case and initiating the download. If all went as planned, the transfer would be near instantaneous.

“Wait.” Shaw froze with her hand just above the cables. The briefcase was open, all she had to do was plug Root in. “Whatever happens, we had a good run right?”

Shaw nodded.

“You won’t forget me if this goes wrong?”

After everything they had been through? Fat chance of that. People had been put in therapy for life, for less. Shaw shook her head. She placed her right hand over her heart.

“You really are the sweetest thing,” Root dreamily sighed. “Okay, do it.”

Shaw reached for the cables once again.

“You know how long I’ve wanted to get you all tangled up in these?” Root chuckled.

Of course she wasn’t going to do this quietly. Shaw shook her head.

“See you on the other side.”

With a click, Root was connected to the case.

Shaw waited. And waited. And waited. And wasn’t this whole thing supposed to go like that? There was a rumble from somewhere above them. Seemed like something or someone was playing with explosives again. As if this situation wasn’t bad enough?

She tapped her fingers against the worktable. Still nothing. None of the indicator lights were signaling that the transfer had gone through. Not even a download in progress flicker. Just like Root to prolong the drama of this whole scene.

Maybe she should unplug the damn thing and blow on it?

Suddenly, the cables released on their own. Shaw scowled. Were they supposed to do that? She looked at Orange and Blue, and then wanted to smack herself because really she didn’t speak fucking minion.

She opted to go with everything was going according to plan, as she had no clue what the hell she’d be able to do otherwise, and gently closed the briefcase. The battery lights shone brightly.

See nothing to it, Harold.

Then the lights began to flicker.

Awe crap.

Shaw poked the briefcase. One of the lights flashed on and off again, and then blinked out. The other two indicator lights swiftly did the same. She smacked her hand down on top of the case, hard. After a second, all of the lights came on full blast. She smirked.

Now where was that… She felt around the side of the case until she found a sliding panel Finch had told her about. A small ear piece was nestled inside. She started to reach for it and then paused. If this really worked Root was going to be insufferable.

What else was new?

She let out a long breath and then grabbed the stupid thing and put it into her ear.

“So about that cake I promised you…”

 

 


End file.
